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Match Report

The Report: Blues 0 Brighton 1

Blues suffered a narrow home defeat to Brighton after their south coast visitors scored a solitary late goal.

It was a hard result to take for Lee Clark’s men, particularly as they had dominated large parts of the second-half and hit the cross bar twice.

Clark made just a solitary change to the side that beat Yeovil Town, with Scott Allan replacing Matt Green and the striker dropping to the bench. Amongst the Brighton starting line-up were former Blues players Matt Upson and Kemy Agustien.

The Seagulls began the game on the front foot and Blues were struggling to contain their fluid opponents.

Darren Randolph was by far the busier of the goalkeepers in the opening stages as he was forced to save Will Buckley’s volley low down and then palm away Leo Ulloa’s powerful headed effort.

The Argentinean then had a glorious opportunity to give his side the lead after 20 minutes, but with just Randolph to beat he curled the ball a yard wide of the far post.

Apart from the occasional foray forward by Clark’s side, Brighton were having the majority of the attacking play.

But as the half-hour mark approached Blues began to enjoy their best spell of the match. Scott Allan saw an audacious 40-yard effort dip just over the bar and then Andrew Shinnie had his shot saved by Brighton keeper Thomas Kuszczak.

Minutes after the half-time restart Blues came desperately close to taking the lead. A great piece of play down the left involving Shane Ferguson and Scott Allan saw the ball reach Shinnie in front of the area. The Scot hit a terrific right-footed effort which crashed back off the bar.

Then less than a minute later Lee Novak saw his own shot smash against Kuszcak’s bar.

It was all Blues now and they were looking a completely different side to the first-half. Tom Adeyemi went incredibly close to opening his Blues account, but his goalbound effort took a late deflection to go behind for a corner.

Totally against the run of play Brighton took the lead on 73 minutes. Andy Crofts found space just inside the Blues area and he made no mistake as he drilled the ball across the front of Randolph and into the far corner of the net.

Having taken the lead the Seasiders looked to hang onto their lead, and despite pushing plenty of men forward Blues were unable to break them down.